Five players on the PGA Tour already have crossed the $5 million mark for the season going into the lucrative FedEx Cup playoffs. And yet he still has plenty at stake.
Advertisement
The course, designed by American architect Gil Hanse specifically for the Rio Games, features wide fairways and no rough to account for wind that can get up to about 40 miles per hour, and already has this week.
Phelps, the top qualifier, will be seeking his fourth straight 200-meter IM Olympic title, swimming Thursday evening next to longtime rival and USA teammate Ryan Lochte. Then again, scores don’t count until Thursday.
RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) – Golf formally returned to the Olympics on Thursday, on a course that saw its construction threatened by lawsuits aimed at protecting the nature preserve on which it was built. “There’s a lot of fun characteristics”.
Bubba Watson (R) and Matt Kuchar (L) chat during the second round of the 2016 Travelers Championship golf tournament at TPC River Highlands last month.
The course will be turned over to the Brazilian Golf Federation for at least 20 years to be a public course.
“I want to smile the whole time”, he said. In fact, it is believed that this Olympic stretch will have a Linksy feel to it with its wide open spaces, forceful breeze precipitated by a lack of tree coverage, and some 79 bunkers, as well as the addition of native grasses and sand which will surely add to the challenge. “They are inexorably linked”.
“We’re off to a great start. The long-term success of his golf course is probably more important”. Downpours on Wednesday could soften up proceedings for Thursday’s early starters, but remember that this is a reduced 60-man field, so there is no real benefit in starting early as most of the field will be out within a couple of hours of each other.
Hanse did his part with a clever layout in which four of the par 4s are at least 479 yards, and the other par 4s are no more than 412 yards, including the 16th hole that measures 303 yards and can be reached off the tee.
“It’s just kind of one of those things, being an outdoor sport, you have three things you have to do, you have to wear sunscreen, you have to wear bug spray and you have to hydrate. But we’re the only country with a chance for a podium sweep”, said Fowler. “At the end of the day, you play for the top three or you play for the golden pineapple, which no one cares about”.
The sport was first played at the 1900 Olympic Games in Paris, but was removed in 1904. We went because it was our love, what we wanted to do.
Advertisement
Hanse wants a good victor, too. Padraig Harrington was surprised to see more than 6,000 spread out across Olympic Golf Course, holding flags along the fairway ropes and sending cheers from all corners. “I think 10 years down the line you are going to look at who won the gold medal rather than who wasn’t here”. “It’s a home run if we get one of those iconic Olympic moments”. For the first time in more than 100 years, medals will be given out on the links, and compared to a typical PGA TOUR event, the stakes are certainly going to be very different in Rio this weekend.
